People who back up their digital photos, videos and documents usually do so in one of two places—a giant hard drive in their home, or a giant remote storage facility in the cloud. If one of these storage solutions goes kaput, so can the data.

Isn’t there a better way?

For the past week, I have been testing Space Monkey, a storage solution that promises to save your data both locally and remotely. The best of both worlds doesn’t come cheap, at least not at first glance: For $199 you get a one-terabyte drive that looks like a large capsule, plugs into your wireless router and stores any files you copy to it. But what sets Space Monkey apart is its peer-to-peer backup system, ensuring that your files are also stored remotely on multiple devices. This service is free for the first year and $49 a year after that.

I like the way Space Monkey works, doubling up on backups and giving me fast access to my data. Saved files were easy to access remotely using login credentials. But its interface is a little sparse, and on the computer it’s missing a one-click feature that would automatically move all files over to Space Monkey.

The $199 Space Monkey storage solution offers two ways to store files: Remote storage, which uses a peer-to-peer system, and local storage, which uses this one-terabyte hard drive, above, that plugs into a wireless router.

Peer-to-peer backup technology can be tough to understand. In short, every Space Monkey drive comes with one terabyte of storage that you can use for storing your own files plus a second, hidden terabyte of storage that the company uses for storing bits of other people’s files. Any time anyone saves a file in Space Monkey, it’s encrypted, chopped into tiny pieces and stored in up to 40 different drives belonging to other users. This means that anyone trying to get to your files would need to access each of these devices and decrypt the files.

The idea of peer-to-peer networks has been tried before, including on CrashPlan, which I reviewed last year. But Space Monkey aims to use the technology in a way that doesn’t require geeky tinkering on your end, nor does it require a big chunk of your computer’s hard drive for shared storage.

It costs a lot less for a company to use this method compared with running a data-storage center, as competitors’ prices show. Dropbox, for example, charges $795 a year for its one-terabyte storage option. Space Monkey’s subscription is $49 a year.

Once your file is saved on Space Monkey, you can access it anywhere, including remotely from mobile devices or from other computers using the Space Monkey Web app. If you know you’ll be offline while trying to use one of your saved files, you can pin and save the file in a way that makes it locally accessible.

After you install the Space Monkey app on your phone, you log into your account and use the app as an automatic backup for all of your photos and videos. This is a big relief for me as a new mom, so I know my dozens of baby photos and videos are backed up in two ways.

But Space Monkey needs a better interface. While it prides itself on being simple, it also left me wondering if and when it was working. I had to ask the company’s founders how certain features functioned because I didn’t see obvious instructions in the device’s app or desktop interface.

Unlike the app, Space Monkey used on a computer doesn’t yet offer a way to automatically save all of someone’s files, or all of one type of file, such as photos. Currently, people have to drag and drop to move files or folders over to Space Monkey, or right-click each folder or file and select “Copy to Space Monkey.”

The thought of storing your data with an unfamiliar company may make you nervous, though Space Monkey’s founders have years of experience with data backup technology. And if worse comes to worse, you’ll still have your one-terabyte drive that will function as a destination for backed-up files.

After setting up Space Monkey in my house, I created an account using an email and password, then installed Space Monkey software on two computers. My husband wanted to store his files on our Space Monkey account, too, and though we currently have to share an account to do this, Space Monkey’s founders said that by the start of next year, multi-account features will work for families and small businesses.

If you use Time Machine, Apple’s built-in backup software, you can point it to your Space Monkey drive for storage, though this feature is still in its initial phase.

When I downloaded and installed the Space Monkey app on an iPhone and an Android phone, an option during setup asked if I wanted to back up photos over cellular. This is turned off by default so that people back up photos only when in Wi-Fi to avoid higher monthly data fees.

Space Monkey’s Android app includes all images from your phone’s Gallery, and this could mean that you’re backing up random images that other apps may have put in your Android Gallery. In my case, this included random images from Facebook that at some point I had come across in my Facebook News Feed and didn’t realize had been saved onto my phone. Space Monkey’s co-founder, Alen Peacock, said this is due to the way Android stores these images on your phone.

Though Space Monkey’s peer-to-peer storage solution can be intimidating and tough to understand, its double-safe backup provides peace of mind without monkeying around.

]]>http://allthingsd.com/20131210/space-monkey-peer-to-peer-backup/feed/0Druva, a Data Protection Platform, Lands $25 Million Series Chttp://allthingsd.com/20131015/druva-a-data-protection-platform-lands-25-million-series-c/
http://allthingsd.com/20131015/druva-a-data-protection-platform-lands-25-million-series-c/#commentsTue, 15 Oct 2013 11:58:30 +0000http://allthingsd.com/?p=365592You hear a lot these days about the problems companies have keeping track of their data as they shift toward providing access to data in a more mobile and flexible way. It wasn’t so long ago that if you backed up the files on company-issued notebooks, you pretty much had it licked. But now you have to think about personal devices like tablets and smartphones that connect over pretty much whatever networks they have handy, and which can get lost or stolen. Keeping track of who has access to what confidential files gets complicated pretty quick.

Druva, a Sunnyvale, Calif.-based startup, has been aiming to make it easier. Its InSync suite is a platform that is intended to safeguard corporate assets by linking the backup of all those files that live on the endpoint — a PC, a tablet, a smartphone — to file-sharing, encryption, and creating an audit trail for governance and forensics purposes.

The result is that employees end up with all the freedom of file-sharing and collaboration that they might want in their day-to-day work lives, while the IT department gets all the security and control features that satisfy its needs. If someone loses a phone, the IT folks can wipe the sensitive data and block whoever has it from accessing company files.

The company said today that it has landed a $25 million Series C round of venture capital funding, with investments from Sequoia Capital and Nexus Venture Partners, both of which have invested before, and a new investment from Tenaya Capital. The round brings its total capital raised to $42 million. Tom Banahan, managing director of Tenaya Capital, is joining Druva’s board as part of the deal.

CEO Jaspreet Singh told me yesterday that the company is now protecting more than 1.7 million endpoints — that would be PCs, tablets and smartphones — for about 2,100 customers in 76 countries, and expects to grow to about 200 employees by the end of the year.

This week, I’ve been in Park City, Utah, attending the Venture Capital in the Rockies fall conference. Basically, it’s a gathering of VCs based in the Intermountain West and early-stage startup companies on the hunt for investors.

As you can see from the image I snapped with my iPhone on the day of my arrival, the fall foliage makes for a pretty awesome view, and the crisp, cold air — it even snowed briefly yesterday — has an invigorating quality to it.

But there’s more to the place than pretty pictures. There’s a fairly active tech startup scene here. I sat through several presentations yesterday from some companies with cool ideas that are just getting off the ground. A few that caught my attention:

Storyvine: This two-person startup, based in Boulder, Colo., aims to make producing high-quality videos easier and cheaper than ever before. It walks you through the process of shooting and editing a video in a way that comes out more polished and thoughtful. Computing giant IBM is an early client. Founder Kyle Shannon started the interactive marketing firm Agency.com back in the 1990s, took it public, and later sold it to Omnicom. Monique Elwell is a longtime Wall Street analyst.

Cypher: If you’ve ever tried to take a call on your mobile phone in a noisy environment, like a restaurant or on a busy street, you’re going to want Cypher on your phone. It has developed a technology to isolate the sound of your voice and mute the background noise you don’t want to hear. The result is a clearer call. The company is based in South Jordan, Utah, and its founders come from companies including Control4 and Fusion-io.

Wave: If you’re familiar with wireless-charging technology for your mobile phone, like Qi and PowerMat, then just imagine a city bus that does the same thing. That’s idea behind Wave, based in Salt Lake City. Spun out of a research project at Utah State University, the idea is to enable wireless power transfer in vehicles. Park the vehicle over the charging station in the garage, then drive it around all day. A few buses using the technology are already running, including a trolley with the Monterey-Salinas Transit system in California; another is running in Long Beach. Its video is kind of cool:

OrderStorm: If you’re a small or medium business and have a website, chances are pretty good you use WordPress to run it. But if you want to sell things from your site, you probably have to redirect your customers to a third-party site. OrderStorm, based in Littleton, Colo. is a cloud-based add-on for WordPress that creates that makes it pretty easy to add and manage e-commerce capabilities to a WordPress site.

Space Monkey: A consumer digital backup service, the company offer one terabyte of cloud storage for $10 a month. The linchpin is the Space Monkey device, pictured at right. Files aren’t stored on the device directly, but instead are distributed throughout the network using a peer-to-peer technology. Basically, little pieces of each file are spread out across the entire network. But you can get access to any of your files anytime, and from your computer (Windows, Mac, and Linux-supported) or a smartphone (Android and iOS). Based in Midvale, Utah, its founders, Clint Gordon-Carroll and Alen Peacock, are both veterans of Mozy, another Utah-based consumer backup service that ended up being acquired by storage giant EMC. The idea is to get the technology adopted by Internet service providers like Comcast and build it into their cable modems and other consumer gear. The company has already raised $2.25 million in seed funding from Google Ventures.

]]>http://allthingsd.com/20131011/utahs-startup-scene-is-almost-as-spectacular-as-its-fall-scenery/feed/0CBOE Staff Knew of Problems in Advancehttp://allthingsd.com/20130427/cboe-staff-knew-of-problems-in-advance/
http://allthingsd.com/20130427/cboe-staff-knew-of-problems-in-advance/#commentsSat, 27 Apr 2013 14:34:33 +0000http://allthingsd.com/?p=316135CBOE Holdings Inc. technology staff knew of software issues in the hours before the largest U.S. options exchange suffered a three-hour outage, according to people briefed on discussions among CBOE officials.

Staffers at the company, which operates the Chicago Board Options Exchange, were confident they could fix the issues, CBOE executives have told colleagues and others outside the company. One area of focus by CBOE Thursday and Friday has been whether the exchange should have moved to a backup system to be safe, the people briefed on the discussions said.

]]>http://allthingsd.com/20130427/cboe-staff-knew-of-problems-in-advance/feed/0Bringing Your Old-Media Memories Into the Digital Agehttp://allthingsd.com/20120925/bringing-your-old-media-memories-into-the-digital-age/
http://allthingsd.com/20120925/bringing-your-old-media-memories-into-the-digital-age/#commentsWed, 26 Sep 2012 01:03:37 +0000http://allthingsd.com/?p=254283Lots of people have memories locked away on old, deteriorating media: home movies, audio and video tapes, printed photos, negatives and slides. Even young people who never use film or tape themselves may have inherited these precious, but fragile, assets from parents and grandparents.

It can be a huge hassle to transfer such material to a modern, digital format that can be viewed, played and easily shared with others.

Now, a small company in Omaha, Neb., called PeggyBank.com, is offering a service where you send in all your old media (it will even provide the boxes) and the company will convert all of these items, for a fee, into digital formats and upload them to a free online “vault,” usable from any computer with Web access. This vault can be accessed anytime from any leading browser and can grow to any size. Plus, you can share access to some or all of the contents of your vault with others, or post items to Facebook and other social networks.

I’ve been testing PeggyBank with a variety of my own old media—old print photos and aging video and audio tapes—and have been pleased with the results. I can now view these items, many featuring relatives and friends who have died, on my PCs and Macs and have been able to share them with others, who can either view or download them. The price of the conversion wasn’t trivial, but to me, the value has been greater.

PeggyBank sends you a box complete with packing materials and tape.

I shared the online PeggyBank version of an old family videotape, which had been created decades ago from even older home movies, with my brother by just emailing him a link to it. He said he “got a chill” viewing it on his PC.

For years, many companies have offered services that convert old media, primarily to DVDs. Most, if not all, will optionally upload your converted content to the Web. But I chose PeggyBank for this review because it is squarely focused on online storage. It will deliver your content on physical devices like DVDs or flash drives, for a modest extra price. But its primary focus is the online vault.

PeggyBank, which has 15 employees and does all the conversion in-house, isn’t perfect. I found the user interface for the vaults it creates a bit awkward. It can take up to six weeks for the conversion to be completed. And I wasn’t able to view my online content on devices that don’t support Adobe’s Flash format, like my iPhone and iPad. (The company says a fix for that is in the works.)

But overall, I can recommend PeggyBank, whose name is a play on both “piggy bank” and on the names of the most common digital video, audio and photo file formats: MPEG and JPEG.

Here is how it works. For $20, PeggyBank sends you a box complete with packing materials, packing tape, waterproof bags and a label for free FedEx ground shipping. Or you can use your own box and shipping. When the conversion is done, it ships your original materials back.

While the online storage is free, the conversion isn’t. The company’s price list, available at http://bit.ly/ReOsoD, is straightforward. For instance, each videotape or DVD you send in costs $13 to convert; each photo smaller than 8×10 inches costs 45 cents; each slide or negative is 49 cents. Silent film varies by the diameter of the reel, ranging from $10 to $80 per reel. Film with sound costs $20 per 50 feet. There is no charge for uploading the resulting digital files to the online vault.

The company offers editing services at an extra hourly fee. Otherwise, it just digitizes the material in the form it gets them. So if you have cobbled together many out-of-sequence events on tape or film, they’ll appear that way in your digital vault.

Users can post the contents of their vault to Facebook and other social networks.

You can’t yet edit the resulting files within the vault Web page, though the company says it is planning such a feature. Still, you can download the files and edit them on your computer using your favorite software. You can’t add your own digital files to the vault; it isn’t meant for general storage.

For my test, I sent PeggyBank six VHS video tapes, 10 old photo prints and 10 audiotapes (nine of them reel-to-reel.) The conversion of all this stuff, which was successful in all cases, was $272. I ordered the optional DVDs and flash drive, which added another $120. The quality was surprisingly good, considering the photos had faded, the audiotapes were warped, and the video tapes had been created from old home movies decades ago by another company.

PeggyBank isn’t a restoration service and doesn’t promise to improve your material. But the company says its technicians will do their best to fix obvious problems. In my case, the video lighting was sometimes poor, and there were specks on some photos, but these problems were present on the originals.

I was able to download and share the items easily from the vault, and copy the files to my computers from the optional flash drive.

The company says its privacy policy is based on the users’ wishes. Each item can be marked either private or public. It must be public to be shared, though you can’t specify which people can see it, so if you email a public link to a friend, she can pass it on to others, who will then have access.

PeggyBank says the vaults it creates are housed on the servers of a large outside vendor, and backup copies are kept.

My biggest problem with PeggyBank is the user interface for the Web page presenting your vault is a bit confusing. It wasn’t obvious how to get back to the previous item. And the third-party mechanism PeggyBank uses for sharing via email, while it worked, was crude-looking.

Still, PeggyBank is a good choice for dragging old memories into the Internet age. It liberated my old, decaying, media and made them almost as easy to view and share as photos and videos captured this morning on a smartphone.

]]>http://allthingsd.com/20120925/bringing-your-old-media-memories-into-the-digital-age/feed/0A Hangout for All Your Social-Network Photoshttp://allthingsd.com/20120925/a-hangout-for-all-your-social-network-photos/
http://allthingsd.com/20120925/a-hangout-for-all-your-social-network-photos/#commentsTue, 25 Sep 2012 22:12:50 +0000http://allthingsd.com/?p=254220Nowadays, people are storing a lot of personal photos on a variety of social networks. They capture photos with their smartphone cameras, instantly share them with Facebook, Twitter or Instagram and never see them again.

This week, I tried two methods for gathering photos from all sorts of social networks. I used ThisLife, a service that pulls in photos and videos from Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Flickr, Shutterfly, SmugMug and Picasa, as well as from a computer’s hard drive or an iPhone or iPad (via an iOS app). One thousand photos or one hour of video are free; more storage costs $80 or $150 a year. I also tested Seagate’s one-terabyte, $110 Backup Plus Portable Drive, which backs up photos and videos from Facebook and Flickr, as well as its primary function of backing up other computer files.

I was amazed by the trove of photos I didn’t even know I had stored on many sites around the Web, and I spent hours flipping through them.

But is the photo quality on some social networks worth saving? Facebook, for example, resizes and compresses images. ThisLife recognizes this issue and uses image enhancement on each photo to improve things like balance, light and contrast. If it imports from a place where photos were saved in their original size, ThisLife preserves that photo size; it stores video at 1080p HD quality. Seagate simply copies the images from Facebook and Flickr to your computer or Backup Drive. Still, having all of my photos in one place outweighed any image quality concerns.

ThisLife stores photos and videos from social networks in one place.

ThisLife, which uses cloud storage from Amazon Web Services, takes a holistic approach, merging photos from various places, and also offers a timeline of favorite shots, facial recognition for labeling people and gets rid of duplicate photos. ThisLife saves photos posted by its users as well as photos from other people in which the user was tagged, or identified by name.

I connected my ThisLife account to Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, Picasa, Shutterfly and SmugMug, and installed its app on my iPad and iPhone to pull in photos from both devices. I used the ThisLife Desktop Uploader with my MacBook, clicking one button to move more than 7,000 photos from iPhoto into the service, a process that took a couple of days.

The overall interface of ThisLife is elegant, laying thousands of images out in a browse-friendly library that is organized left to right by time. I quickly scrolled through photos from a trip to New Orleans in 2006 (originally posted in Shutterfly) all the way up to my most recent Facebook photos, shared last week. The date of each photo appeared in the center of the screen as I scrolled, so I jumped to dates I knew had memorable photos, like my 30th birthday and a 2010 New Year’s Eve vacation.

I dragged photos onto one another to organize each moment into stacks of images. And I deleted photos I didn’t want. By tapping a heart icon on a photo, I added it to a timeline of favorite photos. The iPad and iPhone apps were a cinch to use on-the-go.

When I found an image I liked, I hit a Share button to send it to Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr or to friends’ email addresses. It isn’t obvious enough that you can type in a person’s email. The site first encourages you to share it with friends on their Facebook walls. Later this week, ThisLife plans to introduce a better interface that makes it easier to download images and to tell where they came from. Also this week, it will let people privately share photos with a group of users who can be labeled as viewers or contributors.

People nervous about privacy or who want to stop using a social network (like Facebook) altogether without losing all of their posted photos will like Seagate’s Backup Plus. And its ability to fully back up a computer will offer some peace of mind.

Seagate’s social-media backup works on six different drives for Windows or Mac computers; I used the Backup Plus Portable Drive for Mac. This drive is relatively lightweight and portable, measuring about the size of a mini Moleskine notebook. I plugged it into my MacBook using an included USB cord and followed directions to install the Seagate Dashboard software. Once opened, this software prompted me to sign into my Facebook and/or Flickr accounts, and immediately began downloading photos from the sites. In 27 minutes, I backed up copies of roughly 1,100 Facebook photos. A small Auto Save check box will prompt the service to copy new photos from these two sites once an hour.

Since people may not always want a hard drive plugged into their computer for this backup, Seagate creates a folder called My Online Documents on the computer and stores new photos there. The next time a person plugs in the Backup Plus Drive and performs a system backup, the images are transferred to the portable drive. I glanced through photos in a subfolder of My Online Documents, called Facebook, where album names from Facebook were used to group images together.

Right now, Seagate saves only your own shared photos. The company says that by late October, you will be able to save photos in which you were tagged.

If you’re looking for a way to save all the photos you have floating around the Web, ThisLife groups them in a beautiful interface, while Seagate’s Backup Plus is a practical, no-frills option for offline storage.

]]>http://allthingsd.com/20120925/a-hangout-for-all-your-social-network-photos/feed/0For Backup, You've Got a Friend, Family or Cloudhttp://allthingsd.com/20120214/for-backup-youve-got-a-friend-family-or-cloud/
http://allthingsd.com/20120214/for-backup-youve-got-a-friend-family-or-cloud/#commentsWed, 15 Feb 2012 00:05:55 +0000http://allthingsd.com/?p=174662Nothing elicits such a strong case of technology guilt as asking other people if they back up their computers. Eyes dart toward the ground. Excuses are made. The subject is quickly changed.

As many people know or quickly find out, backing up a computer can be a painfully slow process. This week, I tested a computer-backup system that requires minimal effort and works in the background to automatically back up files: CrashPlan. This appropriately named program is made by Code 42 Software, a Minneapolis-based company.

CrashPlan works with all types of operating systems and lets users back up to remote servers in the cloud and/or other computers or hard drives, like another PC they own or one belonging to a good friend or family member (as long as they give permission). The system also sets no restrictions on file size.

On a typical home Internet connection, the backup process to a CrashPlan remote server could take several days or even weeks for a first-time backup. (After that, backups are much faster and happen unnoticed.) The first-time backup for one of my laptops with about 46 gigabytes of data had been running almost continuously for three days when I filed this column on Tuesday. After the initial backup, regular backups won’t take nearly as long. CrashPlan has a mobile app that works on Apple’s iPad, iPhone and iPod touch, Android and Windows Phone 7, allowing remote access to backed-up files.

The free version of CrashPlan enables a daily backup to other computers and hard drives but not to Code 42’s remote servers. The subscription-based CrashPlan+ will back up to the remote servers as well as other computers or hard drives. It can back up as often as once a minute and lets users choose what data to back up where.

CrashPlan’s straightforward user interface clearly shows what your data are doing and where they are being stored.

CrashPlan+ comes in three payment plans, each with its own tiered rates — from a month-to-month option to a four-year subscription. For each of the three plans, the four-year subscription is the least expensive at $70, or about $1.50 a month per computer for up to 10 gigabytes of data; $140 or $3 monthly per computer for unlimited storage; and $288 or $6 monthly for up to 10 computers and unlimited storage. The company offers a free 30-day trial.

I got started by downloading the software to my MacBook, creating an account and starting the initial backup. A scan of my data took a few minutes before the actual backup began. Using my Verizon DSL connection over Wi-Fi, the estimates of how long it would take changed dramatically by the second. I saw estimates of as much as 17.5 days and as little as 6.6 hours.

I also downloaded CrashPlan onto my office Windows PC, which has a fast, hard-wired Ethernet connection. I logged into my account and opted to back up a folder of photos that was roughly 16 gigabytes. The estimate for this backup was a little over one day, though I didn’t adjust CrashPlan settings to get the fastest transfer on this PC. In a simple menu, I could opt to back up the Windows PC to my MacBook as well as to remote servers — or just to the MacBook alone. On my MacBook, I made sure to adjust the settings to get the fastest speed possible for my giant backup.

Code 42 CEO Matthew Dornquast said the worst-case scenario speeds are initially displayed, but that these adjust down as time goes on. In my experience, the initial estimates didn’t change much.

CrashPlan backs up your newest files first on the assumption those mean the most to you, and it encrypts all files, so file names can’t be read on remote servers or backup computers. I liked CrashPlan’s straightforward user interface because it clearly showed me what my data were doing and where it was being stored. A section labeled “Destinations” let me choose where data was backed up and options included “CrashPlan Central” (remote servers), “Friend,” “Another Computer” or “Folder.” A section labeled “Files” showed exactly what was being stored; in my case, this meant 285,930 files. An “Inbound” section showed any computers that were using my computer for backup.

A CrashPlan mobile app is available on a Windows Phone 7, iPhone and Android phone.

In settings, users can opt to be emailed or even sent direct messages via Twitter that tell them the latest backup status. This is helpful if you’re only backing up to, say, one other PC in your house and that PC fails to back up.

In addition to over-the-air backups, CrashPlan users with a lot of data, very little patience or both may want to try an alternate option. For $125 (including shipping both ways) and a monthly fee for remote storage, the company will send a one-terabyte hard drive that can be loaded with data and mailed back. Once that huge block of data is initially stored on remote servers, regular backups won’t take nearly as long.

To get data back, a “Restore to Your Door” feature will send you a hard drive filled with your data so you can load it onto a new computer. This also costs $125 (with shipping both ways) and the monthly cost of remote storage.

Compared with competitors, CrashPlan fares well. For example, CrashPlan doesn’t limit upload or download speeds, while Carbonite limits upload speeds for large amounts of data after a certain amount has been backed up, further slowing the process. Mozy supports external drives, but this backup is deleted if the drive is disconnected or turned off for more than 30 days. CrashPlan keeps the backup indefinitely, waiting for the drive to be reconnected.

Apple devices can be addictive: People buy one tiny iPod, fall in love, and end up with three or four other Apple products. Now if only they could see all their data on all those devices simultaneously.

Starting today, they can.

ICloud is designed to store and replicate documents, music, apps and 1,000 photos on PCs, the iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad. It also syncs contacts, calendars and email so all your machines and devices have the same data and content. It will back up five gigabytes of data, but certain types aren’t counted against that total. The best part: It’s free.

Thanks to iCloud, the iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch all have the same document with no work on the user’s part.

I’ve been testing iCloud’s sync ability between a MacBook Pro, iPhone 4S and iPad 3G. I also accessed and added content using iCloud.com. At first, I ran into a few hiccups with syncing photos, but an Apple spokesman explained that the company’s servers were occasionally down while they were being prepared for Wednesday’s iCloud launch. After that, iCloud worked without a hitch—well enough that I stopped thinking about which device held what since they were all updated with the same content.

Over the weekend, I imported 300 photos my parents took on a recent trip to Italy, forgetting that my computer was set up with iCloud. When I picked up my iPhone later, the Grand Canal in Venice and the Duomo in Florence were staring back at me in Photos. Same with my iPad.

On the downside, iCloud doesn’t automatically sync videos to other devices. In WiFi, it won’t sync edited photos if edits are made on a device after its camera app is closed. (This includes removing red eye, cropping and auto-enhancing images.) And document sharing on iCloud is focused on sharing with oneself, not with other people, unlike the document-sharing solutions from Google and Microsoft.

I found iCloud’s most useful feature to be Photo Stream, which automatically sends images captured by an iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch up to iCloud and replicates them on all other iCloud devices, one by one. Watching these photos pop onto the screen of my computer, iPad or iPhone was nothing short of delightful.

Photos are pushed via iCloud to the Mac and PC in their full resolution and sent to the iPad, iPod Touch or iPhone in a resolution that’s optimized for those displays.

Photo Stream sends images captured by mobile devices, such as the iPhone and iPad, up to iCloud and replicates them on all other iCloud devices.

By default, any images imported to a PC or Mac are automatically sent into Photo Stream, though this setting can be turned off. Devices need only be powered on and in WiFi to receive images from Photo Stream.

Each photo remains in Photo Stream for 30 days, and only the last 1,000 are saved there. Photos moved into albums on devices will be kept permanently, while Macs and Windows PCs have no photo limit because of their larger storage capacities.

A WiFi network is also required for Backup in iCloud, which backs up purchased music, TV shows, apps, books, device settings, app data, messages, ringtones and images in Photo Stream. Only documents and email count against a person’s five gigabytes of free iCloud storage.

Higher storage capacities are available for an annual fee: $20 for 10 gigabytes, $40 for 20 gigabytes or $100 for 50 gigabytes.

Not Just Photos

Documents can be synced to all devices through iCloud using iWork apps. These include Pages, Keynote and Numbers, and each costs $10 in the App Store. I tested this with ease, creating documents—like a flyer I made using a photo of a church that I took with my iPhone camera—that synced with my iPad and vice versa. Changes to documents appeared the same across all devices and at icloud.com almost instantly.

To get an iCloud account, you’ll need either a Mac that’s running OS X Lion, Apple’s latest operating system, or a mobile device with iOS 5.

Starting Wednesday, when users can install the newest software on one of these machines, they will be prompted to set up iCloud. Once you have this account, iCloud will work with a Windows PC running Vista or Windows 7; instructions explain how to set up and use iCloud on Macs or Windows PCs. ICloud is also accessible via Web browser at icloud.com.

If you have an account with Apple’s MobileMe email and storage service, the company will offer to integrate it with your iCloud account. (MobileMe will be discontinued after June.) If you don’t have a MobileMe account, on-screen prompts will walk you through setting up a free me.com email address from any iOS device or computer. I did this in seconds using my MacBook, and noticed that my Mail and Notes were immediately replicated on all devices through iCloud.

Match That Tune

ITunes Match, an important piece of iCloud, wasn’t available for testing yet. To make sure your music library has a high-quality recording of each song, iTunes Match will scan your library for anything not purchased from Apple and then give you access to the high-quality iTunes track in the cloud and on all other devices. Match will be available at the end of this month for $25 a year and will work with up to 25,000 tracks.

Another interesting feature that wasn’t available for testing was Find My Friends, a free app that works with iCloud and is Apple’s answer to Foursquare. It will let iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch users find another user’s location—in list or map view—as long as they accept an invitation. Temporary location sharing will be possible with this app, enabling sharing with a specific number of people for a specific amount of time. This might come in handy during a family vacation or at a day-long music festival with friends.

]]>http://allthingsd.com/20111011/apple-helps-devices-get-their-heads-in-the-cloud/feed/0Autonomy Buys Secure "Cloud" Assetshttp://allthingsd.com/20110516/autonomy-buys-secure-cloud-assets-2/
http://allthingsd.com/20110516/autonomy-buys-secure-cloud-assets-2/#commentsMon, 16 May 2011 15:36:29 +0000http://voices.allthingsd.com/?p=41119U.K. software group Autonomy Corp. said Monday it has agreed to buy selected assets of U.S. information management company Iron Mountain Inc.’s digital division for $380 million in cash, in a move aimed at strengthening its cloud offering.

Autonomy–which makes software that helps companies keep track of their mass of e-mails, phone calls and documents–said the acquisition consists of the digital archiving, e-discovery and online backup and recovery solutions of Iron Mountain Digital.

]]>http://allthingsd.com/20110516/autonomy-buys-secure-cloud-assets-2/feed/0Autonomy Buys Secure "Cloud" Assetshttp://allthingsd.com/20110516/autonomy-buys-secure-cloud-assets/
http://allthingsd.com/20110516/autonomy-buys-secure-cloud-assets/#commentsMon, 16 May 2011 15:36:29 +0000http://voices.allthingsd.com/?p=41119U.K. software group Autonomy Corp. said Monday it has agreed to buy selected assets of U.S. information management company Iron Mountain Inc.’s digital division for $380 million in cash, in a move aimed at strengthening its cloud offering.

Autonomy–which makes software that helps companies keep track of their mass of e-mails, phone calls and documents–said the acquisition consists of the digital archiving, e-discovery and online backup and recovery solutions of Iron Mountain Digital.

How does Apple’s AirPrint work? And what new things would I have to get to make it work?

A:

AirPrint allows certain apps on an iPhone or iPad to wirelessly print to locally networked printers. Officially, it works only on Hewlett-Packard’s new line of networked printers, which use a technology called ePrint. However, various programs have popped up for Macs and PCs that, when installed on a computer on your network, allow AirPrint to work with existing printers that are connected—physically or via a network—to those computers. One example I have tested successfully is Printopia, which works on Macs and is at http://bit.ly/dfjAsl. Others can be found by searching for “airprint for windows” or “airprint for mac” in a search engine. Note that you only need to install a small utility program on your computer, and nothing new gets installed on the iPad or iPhone, as long as you have the latest operating system for those devices.

Q:

Is there an external hard disk or other device other than online storage which will back up a usable copy of my entire computer complete with software programs and data? I am basically looking for a usable mirror image which would be available to load on another machine if the current one fails. I am not networked.

A:

You can certainly use an external hard drive for this without having a network, but the key is the backup software. For Windows computers, one popular choice is Acronis True Image Home, though there are others. If your computer is a Mac, the easiest choice is the built-in Time Machine backup software.

You can find Mossberg’s Mailbox, and my other columns, at the All Things Digital website, http://walt.allthingsd.com. Email mossberg@wsj.com

I haven’t seen much information from journalists or the major PC manufacturers about the new USB 3 option. I know just a few manufacturers have it as an option with their PC. When will it be mainstream?

A:

USB 3.0 is a new, much faster version of USB that promises to transfer data up to 10 times as rapidly as the current USB ports (called USB 2.0) and to provide more electrical power to run connected devices. It’s also backwards-compatible with USB 2.0, so you don’t have to throw out your current USB peripherals. The new system should be especially helpful in cases where you are transferring large amounts of data, such as backing up computers to USB-connected hard disks.

Many computer and peripheral makers are planning to build USB 3.0 into their products, and a few have already done so, sometimes including only one USB 3.0 port while retaining a couple of the older-type ports. I expect to see even more computers and peripherals with USB 3.0 by the holiday shopping season. But it may not be “mainstream”—common on most new devices—until sometime next year.

Q:

I’m unsure how syncing works. Is there a danger, when two devices are synced, that an older version of a file might overwrite a later version?

A:

It depends on the sync software you’re using. Some syncing or backup programs do overwrite an older copy of a file with a newer one. Others, like the Hitachi system I reviewed last week, keep multiple copies, or versions, of a file that changes, so you can retrieve an older version, even after it’s been altered. If you’re concerned about this issue, make sure the sync or backup service or software you choose supports retaining enough multiple versions of a file to meet your needs.

You can find Mossberg’s Mailbox, and my other columns, online for free at the new All Things Digital web site, http://walt.allthingsd.com.

]]>http://allthingsd.com/20100721/when-usb-3-will-be-mainstream/feed/1Hard Drives By Hitachi Back Up Files Two Wayshttp://allthingsd.com/20100714/hard-drives-by-hitachi-back-up-files-two-ways/
http://allthingsd.com/20100714/hard-drives-by-hitachi-back-up-files-two-ways/#commentsThu, 15 Jul 2010 02:05:21 +0000http://ptech.allthingsd.com/?p=1400There are two basic ways to back up your home computer. One is to use an external hard drive, connected by a cable or over a local network. This method offers the greatest privacy, speed and control, but also opens you to the risk that, if you lose the computer to burglary or fire or flood, you might also lose your backup.

The second option is an online backup service. By separating the computer and the backup, this approach insulates the backup from local havoc. But it requires that you trust the backup service with your personal files, and it can be slow and expensive.

Now, Hitachi (HIT), the Japanese technology company, has rolled out a line of external hard drives that combine the two approaches. The drives, called the LifeStudio series, come with simple backup software that, from one screen, performs both local and online backups of your important data at regular intervals, and allows you to restore lost files from either backup repository. The backup system comes with 3 gigabytes of free online backup storage, and offers much more online storage at an affordable price.

But wait, there’s more. In addition to these dual backup services, Hitachi throws in a second software program that aggregates the personal files on your computer, regardless of the folders in which they reside. This second program categorizes your files into photos, videos, music and documents, organizes them by date, and displays thumbnails of the files in a visually arresting scrollable “wall.” It also can display in the same fashion your online photos from Facebook, Flickr and Picasa—as well as photos, videos and music from around the Web, and services like games, news videos and shopping.

Finally, some premium models in the LifeStudio series of hard drives include, at extra cost, a special thumb drive that snaps onto the larger hard disk using a special dock.

This thumb drive can be carried around and used on any other computer. But when you pop it back onto the Hitachi hard disk, it automatically syncs any new or changed files back to the computer to which the LifeStudio drive is attached.

It’s all an attempt to add both value and flair to a product category, external hard disks, often seen as a commodity driven largely by price and capacity. But it’s also a bit overwhelming.

The LifeStudio drives, and their accompanying software, work on both Windows PCs and Macs, and are available at a variety of physical and online stores. Prices range from $80 for a 250-gigabyte standard mobile drive without the dockable thumb drive, to $220 for a 2 terabyte desktop-size premium drive with the dockable thumb drive.

If the 3 gigabytes of included free online storage isn’t enough, Hitachi will sell you 250 gigabytes of online storage for $50 a year.

In my tests, the Hitachi drives, thumb drives and two software programs mostly performed as advertised on both a Mac and a Windows computer. I was able to back up and restore files from both the local and online systems, though I ran into enough software glitches to make an unqualified recommendation impossible.

Some premium models of the LifeStudio hard drive have a thumb drive that can be used on any computer and that automatically syncs to the computer with the hard drive attached.

One major caveat is in order. Hitachi’s software isn’t designed to back up your whole computer. Instead, the software is aimed at protecting your personal files, such as photos, music, videos and documents. And, while it allows you to select the folders you’d like backed up, it doesn’t allow more fine-tuned controls, such as backing up files with certain extensions. However, the drives themselves could be used with other software that allows such things.

I found the backup software dead simple to use—and reliable. But the initial online backup was very slow, even with a small number of files and a fast connection. Hitachi says its servers were undergoing maintenance during my tests. Also, the local backup software reported at times that the drive was “read-only,” a bug Hitachi says it is fixing.

While the thumb drive is advertised as syncing “automatically,” this only works if new or changed files are in the folder it was set up to sync, something Hitachi doesn’t make clear, but says it will.

The separate file-organizing and viewing software, LifeStudio, seemed more sizzle than steak to me. It’s a nice idea to aggregate all your personal files by type and date, and the scrolling wall of thumbnails is pretty. But I found that it wasn’t a very good way to locate a particular file out of thousands. There is a search function, but it’s only useful if you know the name of the file, which may have little to do with its contents.

I liked the software’s ability to view my photos from social-networking services, but the more general offerings of photos and videos from around the Web seemed random and better done in a browser. In one case, a section called “Featured” turned up a hard-core pornographic photo, amid pictures of puppies and sunsets.

I can recommend the LifeStudio drives for local and online backup, if Hitachi follows through and fixes the “read-only” bug I encountered. As for the rest of the features, some folks may value them, and others will find them superfluous.

In my tests, I was able to view documents, but not edit them, on both an iPad and an iPhone.

Q:

I am considering buying Sprint’s HTC Evo 4G smart phone. My concerns about the Evo are twofold. I don’t know anything about using the Android operating system and wonder how intuitive it is to learn, and I need to know if a user of the phone can look up info while on a cellular voice call.

A:

In my experience, Android isn’t difficult to master, though this will of course vary by person. I suggest you seek out a friend with an Android-based phone to see how easy you find it, or check it out in a store with a knowledgeable sales person. As for performing data tasks while on a phone call, it depends what network you’re on. On Sprint’s (S) 3G network, which is widely deployed, you cannot access Internet data while on a call, though you could look up data, like a contact, stored on the phone itself. With Sprint’s 4G network, which the EVO can access in some 30 U.S. cities, you can access Internet data while remaining on a call.

Q:

If I’m already using an online backup service, and want to start using InformationSafe to collect and store personal data, do I have to purchase the InformationSafe backup service?

A:

InformationSafe’s backup service is optional. If your files were lost or corrupted, I presume you could recover them from the service you are currently using. However, be sure these files are in the set of files your current service backs up.

You can find Mossberg’s Mailbox, and my other columns, online for free at the All Things Digital web site, http://walt.allthingsd.com.

]]>http://allthingsd.com/20100622/using-web-based-microsoft-office-on-the-ipad/feed/1Gathering Vitals of Your So-Called Scattered Lifehttp://allthingsd.com/20100512/gathering-vitals-of-your-so-called-scattered-life/
http://allthingsd.com/20100512/gathering-vitals-of-your-so-called-scattered-life/#commentsThu, 13 May 2010 01:03:15 +0000http://ptech.allthingsd.com/?p=1297The important records of most people’s lives are too often hard to find when you need them. Some are on paper, scattered in folders, drawers or boxes in homes and offices. Others are in digital files on one or more computers.

For years, there have been software programs and Web sites that try to corral portions of this information. Some of these digital products offer to organize your online IDs and passwords. Others focus on financial, health, or other information.

But a couple of relatively new products aim to digitally collect your important data in all these categories in one easy-to-access place: either on your computer or on the Web. One is Orggit, launched last fall by a Chicago-based company called Morgan Street Document Systems. The other is InformationSafe, launched in January by New York company Ascend Partnerships.

Orggit, available at orggit.com, costs $50 a year. InformationSafe, available at infosafe.com, is $50 for a desktop version or $50 a year for a Web version. A backup service for the desktop version of InformationSafe is $30 a year.

I’ve been testing both, and found each fairly easy to use and potentially very valuable, especially as your life gets more complicated. It’s a real bonus to be able to find everything in one place, even scanned paper documents. Both products work on either Windows PCs or Macs.

They also share some important downsides. As you might expect, they are only effective if you take the time and effort to enter all your information, from passwords to credit-card information to all the medications you take, and more. That can be a chore, even though both products try to make it easier with predefined templates for each type of data.

Another downside: security. Anything stored digitally, especially online, is vulnerable to criminal hackers. Both products offer multiple log-in plans, not just passwords but things like photos or important dates in your life that you must identify. Both also use a tough form of encryption typically favored by the government and banks. But there are no guarantees.

On this issue, InformationSafe has the edge. While it offers a Web-based version, it also comes in a version that exists only on your local computer, or on a removable drive. The company says this local version is chosen by 80% of its users. Orggit is purely Web-based, and can be accessed from any computer or from Orggit’s nicely designed free iPhone app.

InformationSafe’s desktop version is less convenient, because it can’t be accessed remotely. But it’s more secure. Still, even data stored only on a local computer or drive can be compromised by a determined hacker who targets it when the machine is online, or if it is lost or stolen and falls into the wrong hands.

Orggit’s iPhone app

You could use InformationSafe on a PC that you never connect to the Internet, but you’d be unable to use the company’s optional backup service and could lose everything if the hard disk fails, unless you faithfully back it up locally.

Each product is divided into logical sections, such as finance, health, insurance, passwords, and so forth. Orggit has a simpler layout, with colorful icons and a quicker, easier way to download reports on what’s in your wallet and on your health data. InformationSafe has many more canned templates, but you can enter almost anything into Orggit as well.

Each allows you to type in your information using the templates, or to upload digital or scanned documents, such as a living will or the image of a driver’s license. Each also allows you to type notes on everything you store.

Orggit has a special health feature InformationSafe lacks. Once you sign up, you get a physical wallet card with a toll-free number that can be called by emergency or medical personnel to gain access to your vital medical information. This phone number also is displayed in the iPhone app.

Also, Orggit allows you to store separate sets of information for up to 10 family members or other people, who can share some or all of their information with each other. InformationSafe allows the entry of information about other people, but it is basically designed for a single user; and sharing, while possible, is more limited.

InformationSafe has a more staid look and feel, but it isn’t hard to navigate. However, its local and Web versions aren’t connected, are purchased separately and don’t synchronize with each other even if you have both.

You can get Web backup of the local version for a fee, but this backup isn’t visible from the Web. The company says it is working on this feature.

If you’re comfortable with digital storage, these two products offer an effective way to organize the details of your life.

]]>http://allthingsd.com/20100512/gathering-vitals-of-your-so-called-scattered-life/feed/0Seagate Once Again Tries to Get People to Back Up Their Datahttp://allthingsd.com/20100505/seagate-once-again-tries-to-get-people-to-back-up-their-data/
http://allthingsd.com/20100505/seagate-once-again-tries-to-get-people-to-back-up-their-data/#commentsWed, 05 May 2010 12:00:58 +0000http://voices.allthingsd.com/?p=24660Making backup copies of important data is like using dental floss–everybody knows they should do it more often, since not doing it can lead to catastrophe. Seagate Technology (STX) is trying to remove some of the excuses.

The disk drive giant, as part of an overhaul of its retail product line, is introducing new data-storage products that require a little less thought on the part of consumers–and a little less familiarity with some of the compatibility issues that should have been eradicated long ago.

People buying drives, for example, have typically needed to understand the formats that the devices use in talking to PCs and other products. Those formats are associated with different data-transfer speeds, as well as sockets and cable connectors for hooking gadgets together.

]]>http://allthingsd.com/20100505/seagate-once-again-tries-to-get-people-to-back-up-their-data/feed/0ZumoDrive Service Is a Silver Lining In 'Cloud' Storagehttp://allthingsd.com/20091202/zumodrive-service-is-a-silver-lining-in-cloud-storage/
http://allthingsd.com/20091202/zumodrive-service-is-a-silver-lining-in-cloud-storage/#commentsThu, 03 Dec 2009 02:15:28 +0000http://ptech.allthingsd.com/?p=1096As people acquire multiple digital devices, including tiny netbooks and super-smart phones, it becomes harder to coordinate all their documents, music and photos so they have access to them from whichever device they’re using at the moment.

People resort to all sorts of time-consuming methods for doing this. Some email the items to themselves. Others copy them to USB thumb drives and manually transfer them to each machine. Still others use Internet-based, or “cloud,” storage, uploading all their photos to a service like Flickr or Facebook, or using Web-based productivity programs like Google Docs (GOOG). And some use Web-based backup, storage or synchronization services.

Each of these methods, even the cloud-based ones, has limitations and frustrations. Some are complicated, or work only with certain kinds of files. Others work only when you have a Web connection, or don’t replicate your preferred folder structure. Still, others work OK with standard files and folders, but have trouble with specially arranged content, such as music that is organized in a jukebox program.

I’ve been testing a cloud-based service that attempts to solve these problems. It is called ZumoDrive, and it comes from a small company called Zecter Inc. A new version is due out this week that aims to add some capability and make the task simpler.

ZumoDrive mimics a standard physical hard disk, which can contain numerous folders and files. It works on Windows, Macintosh or Linux computers, and also comes in a more limited version for the Apple iPhone. It presents itself as a standard hard-disk icon on all your computers. But it’s actually a single, identical virtual hard disk that lives on the company’s servers, not on the computers themselves. The files it contains are rapidly streamed down to your machines when you need them.

I tested the service on a desktop Windows PC, a netbook, two Mac laptops and an iPhone. I generally liked ZumoDrive and found it easy to use, and pretty fast. But I ran into a few glitches, and it can be pricey. The new version will offer 2 gigabytes of storage free, but will cost a monthly or annual fee for more storage, ranging from $30 a year for 10 gigabytes to $800 a year for 500 gigabytes.

Also, like all cloud-based storage, ZumoDrive isn’t fully accessible when you’re offline. It caches, or automatically downloads, some recently used files, making them available offline. But you may want to open a document or play a song that is available only when you are online.

There have been online storage services for years, including some that could appear as desktop icons. In particular, ZumoDrive competes with somewhat similar services such as SugarSync and DropBox. But it’s different.

Unlike DropBox, it doesn’t require you to remember to place files in a single, special folder. You can link your existing folders to the ZumoDrive. And, unlike SugarSync, it doesn’t copy all your shared files to the hard disks of all your computers. It keeps the files in the cloud.

Compared with SugarSync, which I also like, ZumoDrive uses much less of your hard disk space, and does a better job with iTunes libraries. But SugarSync doesn’t require you to be online to use the files it synchronizes, though it also keeps a backup copy that you can access from the Web.

You don’t need to learn any special techniques to use ZumoDrive. Your computer sees the ZumoDrive as if it were a physical hard disk, so you can add and delete files to it in the normal ways. A program like Microsoft Word (MSFT) also sees it as a normal disk, and can open files from, or save them to, a ZumoDrive without a second thought.

And, because a ZumoDrive can be large without taking up much space on your local drive, it is especially nice for netbooks, which may offer relatively little storage. It also allows you to share folders with others, and encrypts the data you store on it, for security.

To use ZumoDrive, you first upload all your key stuff from your main computer. Then, once you install the small ZumoDrive program on your other devices, all those file names show up on your screen and can be fetched from the cloud when you like. You can add files and folders from the other computers as well. And you can also access your files via a Web site or an iPhone.

You can link folders on your computers to identical folders on your ZumoDrive, and they will stay in sync, so you can keep using the folder structure you’re used to, and it will be up-to-date on the ZumoDrive.

ZumoDrive understands how to handle and centralize your iTunes music library. In my tests, I uploaded an iTunes library of about 900 songs from a Mac at my home, and was able to play the songs on a Windows XP netbook that had no music stored locally.

I ran into some glitches and limitations, all of which the company says it is fixing. For instance, at first my netbook didn’t fetch all the iTunes songs.

But, all in all, ZumoDrive is a harbinger of the new world of cloud computing, and it is worth a look.

]]>http://allthingsd.com/20091202/zumodrive-service-is-a-silver-lining-in-cloud-storage/feed/0Time Capsule Alternatives, Windows 7 and Using Droid in Europehttp://allthingsd.com/20091118/mossbergs-mailbox-16/
http://allthingsd.com/20091118/mossbergs-mailbox-16/#commentsWed, 18 Nov 2009 22:38:03 +0000http://mailbox.allthingsd.com/?p=497We’ve got two Apple iMacs. I planned to buy the Apple Time Capsule to back them up until I read online reports that some seem to just die after 18 months. Can you recommend another backup solution for a home Apple environment?

A: The built-in backup program in your iMacs, called Time Machine, doesn’t require Apple’s Time Capsule product to work. It will work with almost any brand of directly connected external hard disk.

For instance, I back up my home iMac to a Western Digital drive that’s connected to it via a cable.

As for hard-drive life, it’s my experience that many seem to die sooner or later, especially if they are used heavily. I don’t know if the ones inside the Time Capsule are especially fragile. But, in just the past six months, I’ve had an external hard disk from G-Tech die on me; seen an internal hard disk on my home Dell die for a second time; and discovered that the hard disk on my colleague’s MacBook died.

One way to protect against the failure of a local backup drive is to consider, in addition to using an external disk, backing up your data to an online backup service like Mozy, Carbonite or SugarSync.

My Dell has Microsoft Vista but I can upgrade free to the new Windows 7. However, I was told my antivirus software won’t be compatible and my email will change—the program will no longer be “Windows Mail.” What do you recommend?

A: I regard Windows 7 as much better than Vista, but you are correct that many antivirus programs will require upgrading and Windows Mail will go away during the upgrade. You’ll have to install a new email program, such as the very similar “Windows Live Mail,” which can import your messages. So, the question really is one of trade-offs. If you’re satisfied with Vista, and would rather not perform these program replacements, you should stand pat. If you don’t like Vista, and are anxious to replace it, then the hassles you describe could be worth it.

Will Office 2003 work with the new Windows 7 operating system?

A: Microsoft, which makes both products, says the answer is yes, though I haven’t tested it.

Is it possible that the Verizon Motorola Droid, which doesn’t work in Europe, could be turned into a “world phone” that could work on European cellphone networks via an app somebody might develop?

A: An app wouldn’t be able to do that for the current Verizon Droid. It’s a hardware issue.

Verizon’s Droid, like most Verizon phones, is built to run on a type of network called CDMA that isn’t used in Europe or most other countries outside the U.S., which use a network standard called GSM.

To run on these networks, the Droid, or any other current CDMA phone, would need an entirely different radio, or two radios, one for each type of network.

Verizon offers a handful of so-called “world phones,” which have both kinds of radios inside, but the Droid isn’t one of them. Motorola may well make a new model with two radios, or even a model with one radio that would work overseas, and I wouldn’t be surprised if it did so.

What could be done with an app is to allow the Droid to make so-called VOIP phone calls via the Internet.

In fact, while I haven’t checked, there may already be such an app for Android—the Droid’s operating system—that would do so. But, in many cases, making such Internet phone calls requires the user to be in range of a Wi-Fi network. Some carriers don’t allow such calls to be made over their cellular networks.

You can find Mossberg’s Mailbox, and my other columns, online for free at the All Things Digital Web site, http://walt.allthingsd.com.

]]>http://allthingsd.com/20091118/mossbergs-mailbox-16/feed/6Backing Up, Lossless Audio and Genealogy Programshttp://allthingsd.com/20090916/mossbergs-mailbox-11/
http://allthingsd.com/20090916/mossbergs-mailbox-11/#commentsWed, 16 Sep 2009 21:28:02 +0000http://mailbox.allthingsd.com/20090916/mossbergs-mailbox-11/My daughter left for college and I am worried about her backing up her computer. Is there a backup service that is offsite and automatic? What about campusbackup.org?

I haven’t tested campusbackup.org, whose Student Backup service copies an unlimited quantity of word-processing, spreadsheet, presentation and PDF files, once nightly, to a remote server for $50 a year. But there are other, more versatile options I have tested that, unlike Student Backup, copy photos and music and other types of files. These include MozyHome ($4.95 a month for unlimited storage, at mozy.com) and Carbonite ($55 a year for unlimited storage at carbonite.com). All three work with either Windows or Mac computers.

I read that importing the newly remastered Beatles CDs into iTunes and listening to them on a computer or portable player is like buying a masterpiece and staring at a photocopy of it. Any truth to this? Does importing really lose that much quality?

It depends on how sensitive an ear you have. In most cases, when you import a CD into iTunes or any other software jukebox program, you are converting the songs into a compressed file, such as an MP3 or AAC file. This saves a ton of space on your hard disk, but at least subtly diminishes quality. To an audiophile, that can make a big, negative difference, especially when you add the insult of listening to the music through iPod headphones or small computer speakers. To most of the rest of us, though—especially with rock, pop, urban or country music—it’s no big deal.

However, there is a compromise. If you don’t care about the songs taking up lots more space on your hard disk, iTunes will allow you to import them in a much less compressed format called Apple Lossless or an uncompressed format called WAV. You can choose which format to use in the iTunes Preferences settings. In the latest version of iTunes, called iTunes 9, this particular option is found under the General tab in Preferences, by clicking on the button called “Import Settings.”

Previously I had a Dell and Windows and used Family Tree Maker for genealogy records. Now that I’m an Apple owner, I find that Family Tree Maker does not work on an Apple, only Windows. What can I do about this?

It seems to me that you have three obvious options. If you still have your old Dell, you could crank it up again just for the purpose of running Family Tree Maker. Or, you could buy a boxed copy of Windows and install it on your Mac, which is fully capable of running Windows and Windows programs (assuming it’s an Intel-based Mac). Finally, you could switch to one of the native Mac-based genealogy programs and import your data from Family Tree Maker via the standard GEDCOM file format used in genealogy. One such program, called Reunion, includes specific instructions on importing data from Family Tree Maker on its “Top 10 Questions” page, at leisterpro.com.

You can find Mossberg’s Mailbox, and my other columns, online for free at the new All Things Digital web site, http://walt.allthingsd.com.

]]>http://allthingsd.com/20090916/mossbergs-mailbox-11/feed/4Running the Treo's OS on the Prehttp://allthingsd.com/20090610/running-the-treos-os-on-the-pre/
http://allthingsd.com/20090610/running-the-treos-os-on-the-pre/#commentsWed, 10 Jun 2009 23:14:03 +0000http://mailbox.allthingsd.com/20090610/running-the-treos-os-on-the-pre/There’s no other major item most of us own that is as confusing, unpredictable and unreliable as our personal computers. Everybody has questions about them, and we aim to help.

Here are a few questions about computers I’ve received recently from people like you, and my answers. I have edited and restated the questions a bit, for readability.

I am a longtime Palm user and am wondering if the new Palm Pre smart phone can run all the Palm OS programs I have become used to on my Treo.

The Pre is a clean break with Palm’s former operating system and previous hardware, and was designed as a platform for a new generation of software programs, or apps. It uses a new operating system called webOS, which wasn’t built to run old Palm OS programs.

However, there is a $30 program called “Classic” by a company called MotionApps (motionapps.com) that emulates the old platform and makes your sleek new Pre look and work like an old Palm device. It is intended to allow older programs to run on the Pre inside this virtual environment created by Classic. I haven’t tested it with older third-party programs and so I can’t say how well they work in this emulation mode.

But there are some caveats to this method. First, not all old Palm programs will run inside the Classic environment, or at least run well. The company lists those certified to work well on its Web site. Second, the old apps can’t activate certain features of the Pre, such as the camera. Third, Classic’s maker says it hasn’t yet figured out how to sync the old apps with a computer using Palm’s old, familiar HotSync process.

Can the Palm Pre be used as a modem for my laptop?

Sprint, the carrier that is launching the Pre, says the answer to this question is no. The company says its data plans for the Pre don’t permit that scenario.

I use Time Machine for my Mac, but I would also like the belt & suspenders security of manually backing up my invaluable iCal data on an external hard drive. How would I do that?

It’s easy. Just go into iCal’s File menu, select “Back up iCal…” and you can save a copy of your calendar to any drive connected to your computer, or even to any computer or external drive on a network, or over the Internet, that your Mac can access. To restore your calendar, just go to the same menu, but this time select “Restore iCal…” and then select your backup file.

You can find Mossberg’s Mailbox, and my other columns, online free of charge at the new All Things Digital Web site, http://walt.allthingsd.com.

]]>http://allthingsd.com/20090610/running-the-treos-os-on-the-pre/feed/0Downloading Video Fileshttp://allthingsd.com/20090408/downloading-video-files/
http://allthingsd.com/20090408/downloading-video-files/#commentsThu, 09 Apr 2009 01:32:02 +0000http://mailbox.allthingsd.com/20090408/downloading-video-files/Here are a few questions I’ve received recently from people like you, and my answers. I have edited and restated the questions a bit, for readability.

Is it possible to download a YouTube or similar file to my computer?

Yes. One program that does this is TubeSock. It works on Mac and Windows, and creates a file you can keep for offline viewing on your computer. It creates the necessary formats for use on your iPhone or iPod, your Sony PSP or Palm Treo. The program works not only with videos on YouTube, but with those on some other sites. It’s available at stinkbot.com/Tubesock/, for $15. But while the makers of TubeSock believe their product is legal, as long as videos aren’t used for commercial distribution, Google (which owns YouTube) may not agree. A quick scan of YouTube’s terms of service reveals that the company sees most of its videos as intended solely for online streaming.

I have this thumb drive which I used to copy of the info from my old computer. I want to transfer all these files to my new computer. I want to transfer my 2007 Microsoft Outlook contacts and emails, and the My Documents folder. When I insert the drive into my new computer everything pops up, but how do I get it to transfer to the hard disk?

Your computer sees the portable drive just as it would an internal drive or folder, so you would just drag the folder or file icons from the portable drive into the folders of your choice on the hard disk. It’s just like copying folders and files from different places on your internal hard disk. Then, you can remove the portable drive, and the files and folders will be on your new computer. For the Outlook files, there’s one extra step, if you want them to actually appear in Outlook. You will have to use Outlook’s import function, found on the File menu, to incorporate them into Outlook’s own Mail and Contacts section.

Does the My Book World Edition networked hard disk you reviewed last week work with Apple’s built-in Time Machine backup software?

No. Western Digital, which makes the My Book, said it doesn’t, and, in my tests, Time Machine didn’t recognize the My Book as a possible backup drive. That’s one reason the company supplies its own backup software for the Mac, as well as for Windows. It’s likely that there is, or will be, some technical workaround, but, out of the box, this drive doesn’t work with Time Machine.

You can find Mossberg’s Mailbox, and my other columns, online free of charge at the new All Things Digital Web site, http://walt.allthingsd.com.

]]>http://allthingsd.com/20090408/downloading-video-files/feed/0Network Hard Disk by Western Digital Offers Easy Backuphttp://allthingsd.com/20090401/network-hard-disk-by-western-digital-offers-easy-backup/
http://allthingsd.com/20090401/network-hard-disk-by-western-digital-offers-easy-backup/#commentsThu, 02 Apr 2009 01:02:04 +0000http://ptech.allthingsd.com/20090401/network-hard-disk-by-western-digital-offers-easy-backup/External hard disks that can be attached directly to a home network for use by multiple computers have been around for a few years now. They’re valuable tools, making it likelier that all your files on every machine will be backed up, and allowing music, photos, videos and other files to be accessible all over the house.

But, unlike external drives that just plug into a single PC, these stand-alone, networked hard disks have tended to be techie products. Too often, they require a deeper familiarity with networking and file-sharing procedures than most folks possess. And some are aimed only at Windows or only at Macs, leaving out mixed-machine households.

Now, there’s a new networkable hard disk that, in my tests, proved so simple that anyone who can plug in a cable can use it, with no setup or knowledge, provided your computers have the most current operating systems. It works concurrently and seamlessly with both Windows PCs and Macs, and can even stream music to Apple’s (AAPL) iTunes program installed on either platform.

In addition, it can stream music, photos and videos to a TV, if you have a compatible add-on box attached, such as an Xbox 360 or Playstation 3. Its contents also can be accessed over the Internet from any major Web browser.

The product is the My Book World Edition, from Western Digital (WDC). This second version of the World Edition sells for $230 for a model with a capacity of one terabyte (roughly 1,000 gigabytes) and $450 for two terabytes. It’s available from various retailers, or at westerndigital.com.

Western Digital’s new My Book World Edition

The My Book World Edition isn’t flawless. Its Internet remote-access feature isn’t great, and it’s more complicated to use on computers running older operating systems, like Windows XP or Apple’s Tiger. It’s also sluggish with older PC hardware. But for its basic functions — backup, centralized file storage and sharing, streaming of music and other media — the My Book World Edition is simple and speedy on relatively new computers with current operating systems.

I tested the My Book on my home network, using several Macs running Apple’s Leopard operating system, as well as Windows PCs from Dell (DELL), Sony (SNE) and Lenovo. Some of the latter were running Vista, some XP and one was using the prerelease version of the new Windows 7 operating system. I also tested it with an Xbox 360.

To start, I just plugged the My Book into an electrical outlet and connected it to my home network’s router with a standard networking (Ethernet) cable. Almost immediately, all of the Macs, and all of the Windows PCs running Vista or Windows 7, displayed an icon called MyBookWorld, making it appear like a regular hard disk on the computer.

Opening the icon revealed two folders, one called Download and one called Public. The latter folder contained three subfolders: Shared Music, Shared Pictures and Shared Videos.

Without installing drivers or any other software, I could copy files onto the My Book from the Windows PCs and Macs. I copied some Microsoft Word and PDF documents, plus several hundred songs, photos and videos. This copying process went quickly, almost as quickly as with a directly connected hard disk. And I was able to open, display or play the files on the My Book on all of my test machines, Mac and Windows.

Then, I opened Apple’s iTunes on all my test machines, and discovered a MyBookWorld entry on the left-hand side, from which I could play the songs on the shared drive. In the case of songs from the iTunes store, however, the machine had to be registered to my iTunes account.

Next, I installed Western Digital’s backup program on several of the computers. It comes in Windows and Mac versions, works automatically, and allows you, via a simple interface, to select which folders or which types of files you want backed up automatically. It worked fine.

For my tests, I then hooked up an Xbox to my TV set, navigated to the media section of the Xbox, selected My Book from a list as my media source, and was able to play on the TV all music, display all photos and watch any videos that were compatible with the Xbox.

I also tried accessing my files over the Internet from remote PCs and Macs, using a free service Western Digital offers called MioNet that merely requires a Web browser. It worked on Windows and Mac, but it was so slow as to be painful, so I would only count on it in emergencies.

I also don’t recommend buying the My Book for use with older PCs running Windows XP. With XP, the shared drive isn’t immediately visible; you have to install the included software to get it to show up. That’s not a big deal on a newer XP computer, but on an older XP laptop I tried, that installation was painfully slow, and so was using the My Book.

When used with modern operating systems, though, the My Book World Edition is the simplest, speediest networkable hard disk I’ve tried.

]]>http://allthingsd.com/20090401/network-hard-disk-by-western-digital-offers-easy-backup/feed/0Lost Cellphone? Your Carrier Has Your Backuphttp://allthingsd.com/20090224/lost-cellphone-your-carrier-has-your-backup/
http://allthingsd.com/20090224/lost-cellphone-your-carrier-has-your-backup/#commentsWed, 25 Feb 2009 04:22:02 +0000http://solution.allthingsd.com/20090224/lost-cellphone-your-carrier-has-your-backup/By the time you’ve left your cellphone in a taxi or dropped it into a pot of soup, it’s too late. All those phone numbers you had at your finger tips — your best friend, your boss, your mom — are gone. (Well, maybe you’ll remember Mom’s.)

Some companies have tried to soothe backup concerns with gadgets like the $50 Backup-Pal from Advanced Wireless Solutions LLC, or wireless services like Skydeck. But for many for people, it’s just as easy to ignore the risk.

Cellphone carriers caught on to this problem, and all of them now offer solutions that make it a cinch for you to automatically back up your cellphone contacts. It doesn’t hurt these companies to know that if your contacts are saved with one of them, you might be deterred from switching to another. Indeed, whenever a customer replaces his or her cellphone with one from the same carrier, a backed-up address book can be wirelessly loaded onto it in minutes.

But the details on how each carrier handles or transfers contacts can be a little dicey. This week I spoke to Verizon Wireless (VZ), T-Mobile, AT&T (T) and Sprint (S) to get the lowdown on how these cellphone backup services work. Is a phone’s address book backed up free of charge, or do users pay a monthly fee? Can people access and edit their stored contacts, and can they transfer these contacts to new cellphones or different carriers, entirely? Will carriers charge users to move contacts to a new phone? How often is the cellphone’s address book synchronized, and can someone specifically set what time this occurs? The responses yielded some interesting information that customers may not know.

Each carrier has a different name for its service, though they all do roughly the same thing: wirelessly tap into the phone’s address book on a regularly set schedule to back up its contents. This backed-up data can be accessed online via each carrier’s Web site, and there, content can be typed in at a PC and pushed to the phone, a much easier option than using numeric keypads to enter names.

Verizon uses Backup Assistant, a free service as long as users are registered online at My Verizon (MyVerizon.com); otherwise it costs $1.99 a month. T-Mobile’s service (my.t-mobile.com) is also free, and works on the majority of phones currently sold by the company, but not all older models. Its service was originally called T-Mobile Address Book, but is now called Mobile Backup, the same name used by AT&T for its service (mobilebackup.att.com).

AT&T charges customers $2 a month for backup. Sprint’s backup offering (sprint.com/services) is a bit more confusing in that it has three types of service depending on your phone type: Wireless Backup is the name of its $2 monthly service that applies to a majority of the carrier’s phones; for six of its newest phones, Sprint Mobile Sync, a free service, will work; for Nextel phones, MyNextel Address Book is available, and it costs $5 a month.

Wireless synchronization occurs according to a set schedule that users can determine. Verizon backs up data daily and lets people choose between the morning, afternoon, evening or late night. AT&T lets its customers set Mobile Backup to work daily or once a week, and they can set the specific syncing time down to the minute. T-Mobile’s Mobile Backup and Sprint’s three backup services work automatically: Every time a phone’s address book changes, a sync is initiated.

These syncs occur unobtrusively, and don’t require any action on the part of the user after the initial setup, nor do syncs incur any extra fees like text-messaging charges.

However, if you’re planning to switch from one carrier to another and you’d like to take your contacts with you, these carriers — unsurprisingly — don’t make it easy. Verizon suggests printing out contacts prior to disconnecting your line with them. T-Mobile says its service is exclusive to its users and doesn’t give people a way to export their data. Sprint allows users of Sprint Mobile Sync and MyNextel Address Book to export their contacts into a common type of format called a .CSV data file, which allows the data to be imported into an application like Microsoft Outlook. AT&T doesn’t currently allow exporting of contacts, but says it will enable exports to .CSV sometime this summer.

All carriers will help you synchronize your old phone’s saved address book onto a new phone — as long as you’re buying the new phone from them and your old phone was from the same carrier. Verizon will help you with this free if you use Backup Assistant; if not, they’ll charge $10 to move your contacts over from an old phone. T-Mobile and AT&T say they will move a customer’s contacts from one phone to another for free, even using older phones that weren’t originally synced to Mobile Backup. Sprint says it supports migration between phones using Wireless Backup and Sprint Mobile Sync at no additional cost.

So instead of keeping your fingers crossed that you never lose your cellphone and all the numbers stored on it, talk to your carrier about what it offers in the way of backup services. You might be pleasantly surprised to learn about a free or low-cost service that works automatically and will pay you back in spades should you need to replace your cellphone. But, if you want to make your data portable across carriers, you may be out of luck.

]]>http://allthingsd.com/20090224/lost-cellphone-your-carrier-has-your-backup/feed/0Palm Pre's New Operating Systemhttp://allthingsd.com/20090114/palm-pres-new-operating-system/
http://allthingsd.com/20090114/palm-pres-new-operating-system/#commentsThu, 15 Jan 2009 00:44:02 +0000http://mailbox.allthingsd.com/20090114/palm-pres-new-operating-system/Here are a few questions I’ve received recently from people like you, and my answers. I have edited and restated the questions a bit, for readability.

Does the new Palm Pre smart phone use the traditional Palm operating system and the many programs that have been written for it?

Palm’s Pre, which is due out later this year to compete with the iPhone and the BlackBerry, doesn’t use this older software, which was once the best smart-phone operating system, but has grown stale. It uses an entirely new operating system called the Palm webOS, which will have to attract developers willing to write new programs for it. It is a clean break from Palm’s previous hardware and software.

How does the Clickfree computer backup system you covered last week compare with Apple’s Time Machine or online backup services like Mozy or Carbonite?

Clickfree simplifies the chore of backing up files to an external hard disk. However, as I noted in the review, it doesn’t back up your whole hard disk, it doesn’t work automatically in the background, and it doesn’t create a backup physically distant from your computer.

Time Machine, which is built into the Macintosh operating system, automatically backs up your entire computer in the background and includes a very easy method for recovering files. It works with external hard disks. But it doesn’t work on Windows PCs, and it doesn’t create a remote backup over the Internet.

Mozy and Carbonite are online backup solutions. Their advantages are that they work unattended and create offsite backups. But they aren’t intended to back up an entire computer, they don’t create a local backup, and they carry service fees.

Does my 13-inch MacBook come with the capability to view PowerPoint files?

No. While Macs come out of the box with the ability to view and create files in the Microsoft Word and Adobe PDF formats, they don’t come with a PowerPoint viewer. In order to view (and create) PowerPoint files on a Mac, your best bet is to buy the Macintosh version of Microsoft Office, which includes PowerPoint itself. There are other methods as well. For instance, Apple’s own lower-priced iWork suite can also open PowerPoint files and create files in the PowerPoint format. And some Web-based office programs, like Google Docs, allow you to view PowerPoint files on Macs.

You can find Mossberg’s Mailbox, and my other columns, online free of charge at the new All Things Digital Web site, http://walt.allthingsd.com.

]]>http://allthingsd.com/20090114/palm-pres-new-operating-system/feed/5Clickfree Backs Up Your Files Easily, So You're Not Toasthttp://allthingsd.com/20090107/clickfree-backs-up-your-files-easily-so-youre-not-toast/
http://allthingsd.com/20090107/clickfree-backs-up-your-files-easily-so-youre-not-toast/#commentsThu, 08 Jan 2009 02:24:02 +0000http://ptech.allthingsd.com/20090107/clickfree-backs-up-your-files-easily-so-youre-not-toast/If you got a new computer over the holidays, you’re probably focused right now on enjoying all its cool features, or savoring how much faster it is than the old warhorse it replaced. The last thing you want to dwell upon is the chore of backing up your data.

Still, backing up your files is important. Hard disks fail, and computers get lost or stolen. When those things happen, files that aren’t backed up can be lost forever, or may be recoverable only for a high price. Unfortunately, the process of performing backups and recovering files can be a cumbersome task.

So, this week, I’ve been testing a product that claims to make the process dead simple. In fact, its maker claims that the gadget, called Clickfree, is “Easier than making toast!”

I didn’t find it to be quite that simple, and it has a couple of important downsides. But Clickfree pretty much worked as advertised in my tests. It is an automated way to back up your important files, as long as you remember to use it regularly.

Clickfree is a compact, specially designed external hard disk that automatically backs up your key files — every time you plug it into your PC — without requiring you to install or launch any software. You don’t even have to press a button. Every time you plug it in, a window pops up on your screen that counts down from 24. When it reaches zero, the Clickfree drive starts copying a staggering array of the most common and important files on your computer. After the first backup, subsequent sessions copy only new or changed files.

The key trick behind Clickfree is that the backup software is built into the external drive itself, and launches whenever the drive is plugged in. It doesn’t reside on your computer.

The drives come in a variety of sizes, from a 120 gigabyte version that costs $90, to a new 1 terabyte version that costs $230. Each drive can be used to back up multiple PCs. They can be ordered at goclickfree.com.

And Clickfree’s maker, a Toronto company called Storage Appliance Corp., has just introduced a new product for people who already own an external hard disk. It’s a special $60 cable with built-in circuitry, called the Transformer, that makes your own drive behave like a Clickfree drive.

Clickfree doesn’t back up your whole hard disk, or your programs. But it does back up over 400 common types of data files, without requiring you to make any choices or configure any settings. It captures email, office documents, photos, music, videos, financial data and more. If you like, you can remove or add file types.

Once the files are backed up, Clickfree presents you with a screen that organizes the files it has collected by category and type. From this screen, you can restore any or all of the files on the same computer, or you can move the drive to another computer and copy them to that machine.

The Clickfree software also allows you to view, or browse through, your backed-up files, print or email photos, and to perform other tasks, as long as the drive is plugged in.

Clickfree originally was designed only for Windows PCs, but the company this week plans to introduce new models that can be used to back up Macintosh computers.

I tested both the Clickfree drive and the new Clickfree Transformer cable, using a drive I already owned, on multiple Windows computers, some running Windows XP and some running Windows Vista. The products worked properly on all of the machines but one, a Vista laptop from Sony. Clickfree’s maker guessed that the Sony was one of the rare machines that require the drive to use an external power supply. It said it supplies such power supplies free to users who need one.

Otherwise, Clickfree worked well, even on a virtual Windows XP machine running on a Mac. Backup was smooth and fast, and I was able to restore files easily, either to the same PC from which they came, or to other machines. I was even able to move files from a Windows PC to a Mac running only Apple’s (AAPL) operating system, not a virtual copy of Windows.

The sole Clickfree function that consistently failed for me was a relatively minor one: a feature that allows you to upload photos directly from the Clickfree software to Facebook.

Unlike a toaster, Clickfree doesn’t work instantly the first time you use it. The product has to install drivers so it can be recognized, and in some cases I had to reboot the computer to complete this process. After that, it was smooth sailing in my tests.

But Clickfree has two big downsides. It doesn’t work constantly in the background, so you have to remember to use it. The company now includes a program that reminds you to back up, but you still have to get out the Clickfree drive and do it. The other downside is that Clickfree doesn’t create an offsite backup of your files. The company is planning to add online backups this year.

Still, Clickfree is one of the simplest and most effective backup products I’ve tried.